As usual at this point in my life, I am entirely behind a week in my pictures and posts, so this is from Friday a week ago.

That night we had a surprise party for one of my coworkers. I decided that pumpkin would be the best for a dish to bring, so I made a variation of this pumpkin bread. How convenient that I already had some canned pumpkin in the house.

I love my bread machine.

Usually it does a good job of mixing, but I have found some of the thicker sweet breads need a little help during the mixing process.

You can see that I did not get all the chunks out, but it was only a little flour on the top.

Then we headed to a local product expo.

Look at all the neat Azorean treats.

Mom, this picture is for you. Timmerman’s is just like the Lambic’s.

Before we left, Ryan was hungry and got a giant taco salad from a street vendor.

Then we got to the party. I was so happy that my bread was still warm.

This is a lasagna made by my coworker, Carter, whose lovely wife, Nicole had worked on reheating this dish and explaining everything that was inside, including pine nuts and a layer of lentils and another with garlic mashed potatoes, in addition to your usual lasagna fillings. All vegetarian, which made me so excited to try this.

After it was reheated, it was topped with tomatoes and basil.

Another coworker made this cake for the Birthday girl, Ann, who teaches band at the school, hence a cake shaped like a guitar.

This salsa, which is famous around our school, was made by one of the school’s Spanish teachers.

Last, but not least, my pumpkin bread, which was a success.

After a very exhausting night, and week since I was an Algebra sub for the whole week, we headed home to watch a movie and go to sleep.

QUESTIONS: When was the last time you went to a surprise party? Has anyone ever thrown you a surprise party?